1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technical field of a recording/reproducing apparatus for managing program data recorded on a recording medium to record and reproduce the program data, and more particularly to a technical field of a recording/reproducing apparatus for storing pro ram data recorded on a disc-shaped recording medium such as a CD into a hard disc to manage the program data for each group.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a type of disc changers which can load a plurality of discs therein at once and selectively reproduce a predetermined disc has widely been used for reproducing program data from a disc-shaped recording medium such as a CD, in order to reduce users"" trouble to change discs. However, such a disc changer can store only limited number of discs at once because of physical restriction. Therefore, if the program data of the disc loaded once can be stored in a supplementary storage device and reproduced as the need arises, there would be no need to repeatedly load the disc into the disc changer, providing users with convenience.
On the other hand, it is possible to use a hard disc as the supplementary storage device of the above-described disc changer since the hard disc has mainly been used as a large-capacity external storage device currently. Changing operation of the disc that has once been loaded becomes almost unnecessary because enormous number of program data can be stored in the hard disc. Therefore, the users are enabled to reproduce programs without difficulty.
However, if the number of program data stored in the hard disc increases, it is time-consuming and complicated to find a specific program among a large number of programs when users selectively reproduce a desired program. Moreover, it is conceivable to, in order to make selecting programs easier, classify the programs stored in the hard disc into groups by setting classification information to the programs, for example, into each performer group or into each genre group if the programs are songs, and manage a plurality of program data. However, in this case, a user may take a heavier burden since the user has to do the operation to decide which group the program belongs to, and to give classification information to the program every time at which the user performs recording function. Moreover, it is also conceivable to incorporate a system for searching processing into the recording/reproducing apparatus in order to perform a high-speed searching processing when the program data is reproduced. However, the cost of the apparatus increases because structures of the hardware and software become more complicated.
Here, in view of the above-described problems, the present invention has an object to provide a recording/reproducing apparatus that can manage many program data by automatically classifying them into groups when storing many program data such as music data in a storage device, has a simple structure, and enables users to easily select programs without any complicated operation.
In order to solve the above-described problem, a recording/reproducing apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention comprises:
a program data reading-out device for reading out program data from a recording medium on which the program data and identification information for identifying the program data are recorded, said recording medium being to be loaded into the program data reading-out device;
a classification information storage device for previously holding classification information for classifying the program data in association with said identification information;
a program data storage device in which a plurality of the program data can be written in and read out; and
a controlling device for, when receiving a command for recording the program data, collating said identification information between said recording medium and said classification information storage device, for classifying the program data into groups in accordance with said classification information corresponding to the program data which is read out from said recording medium, and for controlling operation for recording the program data on said program data storage device, while controlling operation of reproducing predetermined program data which belong to the selected group when receiving a command for reproducing the program data.
According to this invention, it becomes possible for the recording/reproducing apparatus to, when a command for recording the program data recorded on the recording medium such as a CD is received, distinguish the classified information corresponding to the program data by performing a collating processing based on the identification information, automatically classify the program data into groups, write the program data in the program data storage device, and manage all of the subsequent reproducing operations for each group. Accordingly, the functional and convenient recording/reproducing apparatus can be realized since there is no need for users to perform complicated operation such as classifying the respective program data into groups while a large amount of program data are recorded by using a large-capacity hard disc and the like.
The second aspect of the present invention provides the recording/reproducing apparatus according to the first aspect, in which the controlling device performances collation of the identification information during operation of reproducing the program data recorded on the recording medium.
According to this invention, when reading-out of the recording medium starts by a command for reproducing the program data, the collating processing is performed on the basis of the identification information extracted as the program data are reproduced, and the program data are managed for each group in the same manner as described above so that the program data can automatically be classified into groups by the time at which the reproducing operation is finished. Therefore, program management can be performed rationally without wasting time.
The third aspect of the present invention provides the recording/reproducing apparatus according to the first aspect, in which the classification information storage device and the program data storage device comprise a hard-disc device.
According to this invention, the program data and the classification information are stored in the hard-disc apparatus so that the programs can be recorded by using a storage device having a high-speed performance, a large-capacity and a high general usability.
The fourth aspect of the present invention provides the recording/reproducing apparatus according to the first aspect, in which a TOC (Table of Contents) for managing the data in the recording medium is extracted as the identification information, and the identification information to which the corresponding classification information is added is previously held by the classification information storage device.
According to this invention, the classification information is added to the TOC recorded on many recording media for recording the program data, and the TOC are stored in the classification information storage device before the above-described collating processing is performed so that the program data in the recording medium such as a CD can easily be identified and classified into groups.
The fifth aspect of the present invention provides the recording/reproducing apparatus according to the first aspect, in which the classification information storage device previously holds the classification information to which the identification information composed of ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) attendant on the respective program data is added.
According to this invention, the classification information is added to the ISRC recorded along with the respective program data, and the ISRC are stored to the classification information storage device before the above-described collating processing is performed so that the respective program data can easily be identified and classified into groups.
The sixth aspect of the present invention provides the recording/reproducing apparatus according to the first aspect, in which the program data is music data, and the classification information includes information indicating a performer corresponding to the music data.
According to this invention, the music data are classified into groups by referring to the information in the classification information that indicates the performer of the program data so that the music data of the user""s favorite performer can easily be selected from the recorded music data.
The seventh aspect of the present invention provides the recording/reproducing apparatus according to the first aspect, in which the classification information includes information indicating a genre corresponding to the program data.
According to this invention, the program data are classified into groups by referring to the information in the classification information that indicates the genre of the program data so that the program data of the user""s favorite genre can easily be selected from the recorded program data.
The eighth aspect of the present invention provides the recording/reproducing apparatus according to the first aspect, in which the program data and the classification information are recorded in a file format respectively, and are associated with each other by file names.
According to this invention, when the collating processing based on the identification information is performed, the files of the program data and the classification information are compared with each other, and are distinguished on the basis of the file names so that the groups can be managed even in easier way.
The ninth aspect of the present invention provides the recording/reproducing apparatus according to the eighth aspect, in which the controlling device creates and manages list data of the file names listed of the program data in each group so that the program data can be selected from a predetermined group on the basis of the list data.
According to this invention, it becomes possible to select the program data belonging to a arbitrary group by referring to the list data when the operation of reproducing the program data is performed so that the user can easily select the desired program from the list data and reproduce it very conveniently.
The tenth aspect of the present invention provides a recording method for performing recording by using a recording medium on which program data and identification information for identifying the program data are recorded, a classification information storage device for previously holding classification information for classifying the program data in association with said identification information, and a program data storage device in which a plurality of program data can be written-in and read out, comprising the steps of:
when a command for recording the program data is received, collating said identification information between said recording medium and said classification information storage device while reading out the program data from said recording medium;
classifying the program data read out from said recording medium into each group in accordance with said classification information corresponding to the program data; and
recording said program data on said program data storage device.
According to this invention, it becomes possible to, when a command for recording the program data recorded on the recording medium such as a CD is received, distinguish the classified information corresponding to the program data by performing a collating processing based on the identification information, automatically classify the program data into groups, write the program data in the program data storage device, and manage the respective programs for each group. Accordingly, various kinds of programs can easily be managed since there is no need for users to perform complicated operation such as classifying the respective program data into groups.